Quotables
December 16th, 2008 by Evil Beet
“People are going to see Nicole playing it and think it’s all right. It bastardizes our culture. I will guarantee she has no more children. It is not meant to be played by women as it will make them barren.”
Award-winning actor, screenwriter and Aboriginal language teacher Richard Green, to the Sydney Morning Herald, regarding Nicole Kidman playing a didgeridoo while promoting her latest movie on a German television show. Among Aboriginal Australians, there is a strong taboo against women playing the instrument.
Give the lady a break! She was married to Tom Cruise for years. At this point, she’s just happy to put her mouth on any cylindrical object that doesn’t close its eyes and call her Frank.
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Absolutely hysterical… No one mentions the ‘tom is gay’ stuff anymore. From friends I hear he was a NYC slut.
Who says people still don’t say Tom is gay?
Both him and John Travolta still have regular suck-offs.
bwahahahahah!!! omg.
I played a didge before my child was conceived, so it didn’t barren-ize me. Also I dislike old religions telling women they can’t be part of the fun parts- I’m looking at you Catholicism!
CHOKING-ON-MY LUNCH!!! Jesus Beet, if I have to go to the hospital because you crack me up and I suffocate, your awesome new insurance better cover it.
Hmmm. Can we get Paris to play this thing? Or Lindsay? There are many others I could list, but those are my top two who I believe should never procreate.
hahahah
“i guarantee she has no more children”…..sounds like the dude put a voodoo curse on her
LOL youre funny.
wow, she is so thrilled to have her baby, i am surprised she touched that thing, nevermind played it! maybe she is happy with just one baby & not superstitious… but didnt she say some river or something when she was filming “Australia” is known for making women fertile & then she conceived?? maybe she is one of those optimistic people who only believes in postitive stuff.
uhm it will clearly not make a chick infertile
I was thinking the same thing. She is superstitious.
She’s an Australian, and there’s no way she’s not aware of what the didgeridoo means to the Aborginal people, or the customs behind it. Even as little kids, we’re told that women do not play it. It’s not a women’s lib thing, it’s a matter of respect.
Fuck off. I’m an Aussie, it never in my life occurred to me not to play a didgeridoo until that dickwad just told me I wasn’t allowed to because of some ancient, outdated, superstitious bullshit. Religious bullshit bigotry is still religious bullshit bigotry, even if you want to dress it up as noble savage culture. Snore.
yeah, my thoughts exactly. we were taught a bit about aboriginal culture & stuff back in the days. i thought every Australian would know that fact.
@ Miss Mart, with all due respect (of which there is very little, seeing as you opened your argument by swearing) did you go to school? Because we are taught this at school. And if you think the Aboriginal culture is savage, which culture isn’t? European? @ Kirra, I agree totally.
I’m in Australia, just finished schooling.. we never got taught that in schools! Who cares anyway, she’s not Aboriginal, she’s not amongst a tribe when doing it, let her do what she likes. Political correctness much?
Didn’t she say she doesn’t want anymore children anyway? haha
THAT might have been the funniest thing you have ever written Beet.
hey if that is true that people can save some real money on birth control
I feel that she’ll be announcing her next pregnancy within the year… just to stick it to them.
if anything, it should have the opposite affect. do you see how freaken big that thing is??
Aboriginal Australians? As opposed to Aboriginal Americans? I have a feeling they aren’t keen on that description. Indigenous Australians or Aboriginals would be the terms. Just to be a stickler, haha.
My mother is an Aboriginal elder. No Aboriginal person minds being called an Australian Aboriginal because all Aboriginal means is ‘native to’ or ‘from the land of’. Regardless of the fertility implications or not of playing a didgeridoo, its out of respect for the culture that women are asked not to play it. There are other cool instruments we can play – why direspect people’s beliefs?
She should not have played it, and especially not on television, but perhaps she just didnt think of it. Its like people who climb Uluru (Ayers Rock) when they have been asked not to by the people of that area – most of them just don;t think and get caught up in the moment.
sorry to rant.
@ Heatherly – well there are certain cultures that think a woman should have her clitoris cut out (along with her labia). I wonder should we respect that too ?
Well it kind of comes down to the concept of not harming others – female circumcision is very harmful, obviously. But I have never known a single woman who suffered harm from NOT playing a didgeridoo. Same as it doesn’t harm men to take their hats off in church, or start singing loudly during grace before a meal in a Christian household!
It’s only a few groups of Indigenous Australians who beleive this, and my isn’t it amazing how there is such focus and comment on a woman doing something disrespectful . NOBODY (whether black or white) speaks up about how Indigenous Australians have systematic child, alcohol and drug abuse and are welfare dependent and have poor outcomes (can’t read, write, get a good job..) . . . . It’s like ‘lets create a fuss about an insignificant issue and ignore the real issues about Indigenous Australia’…..
Trollydolly, you would be surprised at some of the Indigenous initation rites performed on men (look up subincision) . . usually at about age 11-13 . . look it up
Activists, elders and representatives from government departments like DOCS among other people are constantly adressing and fighting the child abuse, substance abuse, welfare dependency and the problem of education in the Aboriginal population. (There are a lot of educated people in the community though, at our university about 10% of students were Aboriginal, so they could clearly read.) So thats the socio-economic and health problems.
This is about cultural issues, whats wrong with talking about them?
No, I have to agree that you can truss up sexism in cultural robes, but it’s still sexism. As a former Muslim, I can attest that all KINDS of taboo-for-women laws are harmful in the long run, regardless of whether or not DIRECT harm is done to women by forbidding them something. “It doesn’t HURT you, does it? Then, why won’t you respect it?”. Because it’s bollocks, that’s why. I don’t have to respect anything that’s based on fantasy and superstition, and that goes for all religions.
I agree with Mr Green. You don’t bastardize a racial culture on TV for the sake of promoting a stupid (or any) film, especially not a film that turns Australia (the country) into an absurd farce. As if Nic could survive a day in the outback. Pshaw!
As for the taboo, times may slowly be changing as far as women being alllowed to play didge, but this shit ain’t helping the cause. Its always a good idea to ask permission.
If you go to someone’s house and they say “please dont pick up that vase, it was my grandmother’s and I really dont want to risk breaking it” would you pick it up simply because you could? would you think that that was stupid, to attach emotion to a physical object, and that you were being repressed by being asked to not pick it up? or would you politely respect the person’s tie to their heritage, even though you think its just a dumb vase, even though you know you wouldn’t drop it, even though you don’t personally attach memories to objects? Cultural heritage, rules and respect are like that, its a religious artifact, not simply a musical instrument.